Bam earthquake - Mullah's refusing outside aid

Good article in National Review about the Iran earthquake and the reaction of the local citizens to the relief workers and the mullahs. bq. The Bam earthquake showed the Western world at its best (rescuers, doctors, money, medicine, and food poured into Iran) and the mullahcracy at its worst (no national leader dared set foot in the disaster zone for four days, and then only when the army and assorted thugs could protect the mullahs against the rage of the locals). When some Americans prepared to leave, they were begged to remain. The Iranians feel safer with us than with their own tyrants. and more: bq. Look again at the scenes in Bam. The destruction of that once fabulously beautiful city is a symbol of what the regime has done to Iran, once a wealthy and prosperous and creative country. Look at the many reports on the awful degradation of Iranian society, now leading the region in suicide and teenage prostitution, its standard of living a pitiful shadow of what it was before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, its infrastructure in tatters, its armed forces distrusted by the country's leaders, its students under virtual house arrest, its newspapers and magazines silenced, its talented moviemakers and writers and scientists and artists fleeing to the West whenever they see a crack in the nation's walls. Look at the damning human-rights reports. Read the harsh condemnation of the mullahs' relentless censorship from Reporters sans Fronti�res," which calls Iran the world's greatest predator of free press. And listen to the cries of the Bam survivors as they ask why this had to happen, why no help arrived until long after the disaster struck, and why the mullahs preferred to see thousands of them die, rather than accept humanitarian assistance from the Jews.